{"id":613,"date":"2020-11-04T18:13:37","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T18:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ayilamedia.com\/?p=613"},"modified":"2021-01-30T14:54:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T14:54:30","slug":"interview-joseph-akama-nous-parle-de-son-court-metrage-into-the-den","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ayilamedia.com\/en\/news\/interview-joseph-akama-nous-parle-de-son-court-metrage-into-the-den\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Joseph Akama talks to us about his short film “Into the Den”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Winner of the contest “10 days for a film” edition 2019 organized by the Goethe Institut and the film festival Ecrans Noirs, Joseph Akama returns this year with a second short film “Into the Den”. A short more ambitious than the previous one on a technical and artistic level. The movie and will be screened on November 5, 2020 in Yaound\u00e9 on the occasion of the 24th edition of the Ecrans Noirs Festival<\/a>. Joseph Akama gave us a long interview and spoke to us about the contours of this project and his vision of cinema.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Spoiler alert!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Interview conducted on October 24, 2020<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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I would like to bring a fresh air and set myself apart from the style of cinema we are used to seeing in Africa and Cameroon.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ayila: You just finished shooting your second short, Into the Den, how was the shoot and what level are you at today ? <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Joseph Akama: The shoot went like all shoots, not as planned! (laughs)<\/em> It took a lot of improvisation, a lot of adaptation to meet my needs as a writer-director and also to meet the objectives that we had set with 103 Films<\/em> and and the people who trusted us on the project.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Into the Den (ITD<\/em>), you take us into a universe well known by African audiences, witchcraft, but which is unfortunately rarely told by African filmmakers. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I would like to bring a fresh air and set myself apart from the style of cinema we are used to seeing in Africa and Cameroon. I would like to get away from dramas, trade show movies, comedies, pathos and extremely tragic movies. I’m a particular fan of thriller films, psychological films, films that explore different emotions and I think that’s kind of what you find yourself in ITD<\/em>, it’s a fantastic thriller. I think the big challenge is to make films that are both entertaining, and smart. By smart I mean a movie where the director doesn’t take you for someone who doesn’t know how to watch a movie. The director doesn’t give you everything, he leaves holes, lets you fill those holes, he lets you discover the film; he leaves paratexts, signs, symbols, but obviously without making the film irrelevant to those who do not have these notions or who cannot go to the 2nd or 3rd degree of reading.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"How did you come up with the idea for the film Into the Den ? <\/strong><\/p>\n

So this is very silly because ITD<\/em> starts off with a question that I asked myself, what if I tell people my dreams? This is where it all started, I have dreams, we all have dreams and what we experience in those dreams doesn’t always make sense. In ITD<\/em> there is a big question that I ask and I also provide the answer in the film : is witchcraft limited to Africans, is witchcraft limited to blacks ?<\/span><\/p>\n

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I love psychological films, I love themes that question humanity, that allow us to discover ourselves as humans.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Does witchcraft exist ? <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I think the universe of the film is quite deadlocked and assumed too, from the start of the film we understand where I’m going. I don’t think the big question is does it exist because, well I’ll have to spoil the film a bit, there is a passage in the film where Boris (secondary character of the film played by Assala Kofane), says “you see that’s why I left you with your things there\u201d that means that he admits that it exists, at one point Diana (played by Carola Dinnbier) also said \u201cthat could make a great movie all that\u201d, it is not that she says that it does not exist but that it is not important to her. In ITD<\/em> I actually question the universality of witchcraft, where do we find witchcraft nowadays and obviously I leave the answer to viewers.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Into The Den is your second short film after Western, both films were produced as part of the “10 days for a film” program. In western you take us into the head of a hero who builds an imaginary character, in ITD you take us into the second nature of people, into a kind of duality; it looks like you like to go beyond people’s appearances … <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I love psychological films, I love themes that question humanity, that allow us to discover ourselves as humans, and perhaps to make an examination of conscience. In western we have precisely this character Kamdem<\/em> who because he is troubled by society takes refuge in his own universe, he creates a character for himself who is in fact the representation of everything he would like to be. In ITD<\/em> we have a character who tries to escape his past and he realizes that no matter where he goes he finds the same things, he finds out that maybe people are not who they are, he also find that people are not always what they seem to be.<\/span><\/p>\n